


Last Friday Night

by inkvoices



Series: Licorice Allsorts [34]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Community: be_compromised, Gen, Steve Rogers: fight me, Team Bonding, plant yourself like a tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26444491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: “One with the least bruises has to explain to Coulson,” Clint calls out, grinning wildly as he ducks under a thrown stool.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Series: Licorice Allsorts [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/35503
Comments: 20
Kudos: 33
Collections: Be Compromised Promptathon





	Last Friday Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/gifts).



> Written for Alistra in the [be_compromised Epic Summer Promptathon 2020](https://be-compromised.dreamwidth.org/583594.html%22) for the prompt 'I made a fist and not a plan.'
> 
> Warnings: bar brawl violence, victim with minor head wound, one f-word use

The friends of the loud-mouthed, Nazi-tattooed asshole Steve knocks to the floor take a minute to realise what just happened before they start to react. One of them grabs an empty beer bottle by the neck, ready to swing, and another lifts a bar stool by the leg with both hands. Sympathetic members of the crowd start drawing closer, faces ugly, along with the idiots who love a brawl.

“Now what?” Natasha asks flatly, from where she’s sitting next to Clint at the table they only managed to get on this busy Friday night by showing up early. 

“Oh, I was going to improvise,” Steve says, voice casual but eyes darting all over the bar as he calculates movement, angles, opportunities. Watching his opponents edge nearer and weighing up which one will be brave enough - or stupid enough - to make the first move. Well, the second or third move, if Nazi Number One violently shoving a young women out of his way, so that her head caught the edge of a table as she fell down, and Steve taking offence count.

James is already on his feet and taking up a position just behind Steve to his left, where James can use his metal arm to cover for where Steve would usually use the shield - which he doesn’t have with him because this was meant to be _a casual night out_.

Clint, on the other hand, is still munching on fries and wings.

“Did you make a fist and not a plan?” Natasha sighs and steals one of Clint’s fries as she stands up. 

“Planning is for suckers,” Clint says, holding up his basket so she can take a few more, at the same time as Steve says cheerfully, “It’s my night off.”

Natasha and James exchange a look, which says _that one is your idiot_.

“I’m fine. Seriously,” Natasha can hear the woman saying where Sam has guided her out of the line of fire, and Sam replying, in his best reassuring-the-civilian tone of voice, “Sorry, but I’m gonna have to disagree. I used to do this for a living, okay?” 

She looks over to see him brushing the woman’s braids back behind her ear so he can inspect a cut above her eyebrow that’s bleeding heavily, painting the side of her face and dripping onto her top. Head wounds bleed a lot, so Natasha knows it looks worse than it probably is, but she’s lucky it missed her eye.

“You don’t have a concussion, but I’d like to put a couple of butterfly stitches on this,” Sam says. Then, louder, “Can someone get me a first aid kit please?”

“Get it your fucking self,” a guy mutters - the one who thinks using a beer bottle as a weapon would be a good idea.

Clint finally gets to his feet, throwing his now empty food basket at the guy and making him drop the bottle, then the biggest guy is taking a swing at Steve and Natasha is demonstrating to another, who charges at her spewing sexist bullshit, that targeting her isn’t the easy option.

Meanwhile one of the bar staff is directing Sam and his patient through a door at the back and another is on the phone, probably to the police. Natasha would feel offended that they don’t think the Avengers - well, half of the Avengers - can handle this, but she’s still holding onto a faint hope that they haven’t been recognised. Either way, to be fair the staff are probably calling the police on all of them.

“One with the least bruises has to explain to Coulson,” Clint calls out, grinning wildly as he ducks under a thrown stool.

“Not fair,” Steve complains and James laughs.

Steve’s serum works faster than James’ knockoff version, so any bruises Steve gets will be long gone by the time they have to report this shit. All James and Natasha have to do is let a few hits land so they have a mark or two.

Clint always ends up with a mark or several; his close combat fighting style still works best for protecting others rather than defending himself, even though Natasha has managed to improve it over the years, mostly by yelling at him to put his mask on first before helping others. When Clints moves to cover Natasha’s back she adjusts to protect him in turn and that solves the problem.

James, however, is displaying terrible technique as he knees an opponent in the balls, but then, beyond making sure no one he cares about gets badly hurt, James doesn’t really take these kinds of fights seriously. For which they’re all thankful, because if he did there’d be a pile of dead bodies to deal with at the end and no one needs that when they’re off the clock.

“Come on,” Steve says, clearly more bothered about having to try to explain his inability to deal with assholes without escalating the situation than he is by fighting three of said assholes at the same time. “What am I even supposed to say?”

Natasha thinks it’s an excellent demonstration of teamwork when the rest of them manage to be almost perfectly in sync as they tell him to, “ _Improvise_.”


End file.
